


Memories

by DecayingLiberty



Series: Dust and Shadow [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Nightmares, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 01:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15062069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DecayingLiberty/pseuds/DecayingLiberty
Summary: Courfeyrac finds Marius again.





	Memories

There’s fire and there’s smoke. The air smells like gunpowder and the sound of gunshots pounds against his head as the cannons shatter the barricades. Dread pools in his stomach, heavy chunks of fear and guilt weigh down on his chest and it is hard to breathe and hard to move. He is shaking. Another cannonball collides against barricade and Courfeyrac ducks under a fallen carriage, listens and watches as debris falls around him. He moves out again, careful not to be seen, and but the things he sees make him stumble, make him nauseous.

And then his eyes are looking for him. Through the debris and the rain and the smoke he searches. But before he can find him, burning hot pain blooms in his abdomen and he wakes with a scream.

His roomates, Combeferre and Enjolras, are at his sides and they don’t ask, don’t pry, but they have climbed onto his bed and hold him until he stops shaking.

On nights like this, they hold onto one another and mourn.

 

* * *

 

He is not the only one. His roomates are from back then, too. They look the same and are the same at core, yet different through the circumstance of time. Enjolras remembered first, then Combeferre and lastly him, and they have found each other through coincidence — as Enjolras says, — or fate — as Combeferre believes. Courfeyrac is confident that they will find the others, too. He hopes to find them soon, and most of all, he hopes to find him.

Adjusting to life with memories and feelings from another life is not as beautiful or romantic as the films make you believe. It is sharing a mind with another person even though the person looks and thinks like you and it is a constant struggle of deciding which memories belong to this life and which ones to back then. Sometimes, both lives bleed into one another. Sometimes words don’t sound as they should, they speak of cell phones and coaches, and talk of music and books long lost.

Sometimes Combeferre wakes up and wants to attend the lectures that Joly invited him to, sometimes Enjolras walks out the door to go to the Musain, and it is only when they open the door to see the stairs with the plastic railing, pristine and bare, and look through the windows to see horseless coaches made of metal, they stop and return and lock themselves away from the world because this life is not entirely theirs any more and Courfeyrac sits with them and talks to them of frivolous gossip until they are calm.

They all have their demons but Courfeyrac thinks that they fare quite well despite the times when they seem off-kilter, when they turn to speak to someone who is not there or wait for a joke that never arrives.

They are coping and he supposes that it could be worse.

 

* * *

 

He finds him one day at the university after the lecture ends and the students are pouring out of the hall en masse. He is swept away by the crowd as people push pass him with their bags and folders bumping into him. A person passes him in a hurry, surrounded by the air stirred with their movement, and the scent of a perfume he would recognize in any life sweeps past him. When he turns he catches the sight of familiar black hair and recalls they way the short strands had tangled in his hands once long long ago.

“Marius,” he whispers. “Marius!” he calls.

And just as quickly as he has appeared, he vanishes.

 

* * *

 

Courfeyrac bursts through the door of their shared apartment, panting heavily, with his lip wavering, and he tries to talk and breath through his erratically beating heart but there is not enough air and he thinks he might collapse.

Combeferre places a hand his chest and shoulder, helps him stay upright as he guides him to the couch.

“I saw him,” Courfeyrac says when he could finally breathe. “he was there.”

Combeferre does not ask who “he” is because he knows. It had been an open secret back then and it is an open secret now.

“Have you talked to him?” Combeferre asks.

“No — I didn’t. He was gone so fast. I, I need to find him.” Courfeyrac grabs onto Combeferre’s shirt. “Please, I need to find him.”

And Combeferre says nothing as he carefully untangles Courfeyrac’s cramped hands from his shirt and puts them onto his lap.

“Rest,” Combeferres says. “You are drained. We can talk later.”

Courfeyrac grinds his teeth together to keep himself from lashing out and closes his eyes reluctantly.

 

* * *

 

Days have passed since the incident when Enjolras places a note in front of him when he returns home.

“Here. I am going against my policy of not interfering in such matters but —”, Enjolras frowns. “There’s no ‘but’. Make the best out of it.”

Enjolras locks himself into his room and Courfeyrac picks up the note. There, written in Enjolras’ delicate handwriting is an address and a time.

His hearts beats a mile a minute.

 

* * *

 

The address is a café and for reasons inexplicable to Courfeyrac, Enjolras has set him up for a blind date. Yet, there is no mystery on who his date will be and as he sits and waits for her to arrive, wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers, he considers whether he should buy Enjolras another book or send him a bouquet of wasps.

He has been thinking about the things to tell him. About before and about then, ask for forgiveness and for new beginnings. It had been his fault after all that Marius joined the fight and it had been his fault that he died. Courfeyrac doubts he deserves him time in this life any more. He wants to run, to tell the waitress to tell Marius some flimsy excuse and leave because he cannot. do. this.

He is not ready to face him.

But before he can make another move, the chair in front of him moves and the air is filled with that sweet heavy perfume he knew so well.

“Hello,” Marius says and smiles at him. “My name is Marius Pontmercy.” When Courfeyrac says nothing he continues. “You must be Courfeyrac, right?”

He nods.

“Nice to me meet you,” Marius says and offers his hand.

Courfeyrac takes it and as their skin touch, the air is knocked from his lungs.

“Nice to meet you, too”, he croaks as he tries not to cry.

Marius does not remember him.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop by on my [tumblr :) ](https://decayingliberty.tumblr.com)


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